


More Than Thugs

by Sassy_Lil_Scorpio



Category: Set It Off (1996)
Genre: 50 Sentences, Bone Thugs N Harmony, Brokenness, Child Protective Services, Escape, Everything isn't black and white, F/F, F/M, Lida Cleo Frankie and T.T. are "more than thugs", LiveJournal, Murder, Racism, bank robberies, justice/injustice, look deeper beyond the surface, motives for turning to crime, moving up, quartet of friends, the lure of money, the system, who is the true villain?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:02:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28457241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sassy_Lil_Scorpio/pseuds/Sassy_Lil_Scorpio
Summary: If you came into their world and lived their lives, you would see that they were more than thugs. Tidbits about Cleo, Stony, Frankie, and T.T., who were more than common criminals and bank robbers. They were sisters who loved each other through all their ups and downs. And they were warriors who fought to the bitter end.  {50 sentences on 1 fandom.}
Relationships: Cleo & Ursula, Stony & Keith





	More Than Thugs

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Lida "Stony" Newsom, Cleopatra "Cleo" Sims, Francesca "Frankie" Sutton, Tisean "T.T." Williams, and other characters mentioned in this writing are the property of F. Gary Gray. No monetary gain is being made nor is copyright infringement intended.
> 
> Author's Notes: 50 Sentences based on 1 fandom is a Live Journal (LJ) community. I chose "Set It Off" since there is hardly any fanfiction on it and it's a movie that I enjoy. The sentences written to the single-word prompts. Some sentences may come off as run-ons and I might have some comma-splicing—I did my best to proofread for that. This form of fan-fic is harder than it appears, especially when you come across a word and don't know how to relate it to the fandom. I highly recommend this exercise—it's a good break from longer fics and you can even expand on the sentences to write one-shots and other types of fanfic.
> 
> Some of these sentences deal with race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and other topics. I don't want to readers to get offended if they see quotes like "rich white folks," a character wondering if her circumstances would be different if she were White, and not Black, and also lesbian relationships that take place in the canon (the film) itself. Race and ethnicity is a heavy and emotional topic for some people, and although I can't control readers' reactions, I felt a brief note was necessary.

_Now come into my world,  
_ _And you can see that we are more than thugs  
_ _We're more than thugs. We're more than thugs. We're more than thugs.  
_ _With just a little twist of harmony,_  
 _We're smokin' lethal warriors  
_ _We're warriors. We're warriors. We're warriors._

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony "Days Of Our Livez"

**1\. Mortal**

A false sense of invincibility shrouded them for a short time up until the moment the security guard shot T.T.; that's when they realized they were mere mortals in a violent game of life and death.

**2\. Broken**

They were all broken women, living in a cruel world that constantly shattered their spirits, and then laughed at them as they tried to glue the pieces back together.

**3\. Vanish**

Stony had one goal in mind as she boarded the bus destined to reach Mexico—she would vanish from Los Angeles as if she never existed.

**4\. Rain**

It rained the day of Stevie's funeral, as though angels in the sky wept for the tragic loss of Stony's brother—his wrong, violent, and premature death.

**5\. Ocean**

The ocean surrounding Mexico's beaches represented possibilities for Stony—its vast openness, far-reaching depths, and blueness helped her to remain hopeful of the dreams she still wanted to accomplish for herself.

**6\. Tense**

T.T. was the most sensitive of the quartet; she always felt tense when Stony argued with Cleo or Frankie.

**7\. Soon**

As soon as they successfully robbed another bank, they would leave Los Angeles; too many _soon's_ ruined their plans in the end.

**8\. Why**

_Why?_ —it was always the question Stony asked herself when the police had shot Stevie and she remembered holding his limp body in her arms—why did this have to happen to him?—why did she and him part on bad terms?

**9\. Winter**

Before Cleo hit the pavement after the police shot at her like a firing squad, she thought about winter, since she felt the same as that particular season—cold and barren.

**10\. Fallen**

Cleo, Stony, Frankie, and T.T. were fallen angels through no fault of their own, and as the events in their lives unraveled, it seemed as though they would never stop falling.

**11\. Storm**

Stony aimed to stay optimistic after her conversation with Keith when he asked her where she saw herself five years from now; her life might be a storm now, but there was always a rainbow afterwards; things had to get better.

**12\. Door**

They were close to the exit, a mere two feet away from making their getaway— when Detective Strode and Detective Waller stopped them.

**13\. Flash**

" _In and out like a flash of lightening!_ " Cleo said, bragging about their first heist.

**14\. Wait**

Keith waited nervously in the restaurant wondering when and if Stony would show up; his intuition told him she wanted him there, so that he wouldn't have to see what was about to take place in Downtown Federal.

**15\. Shrine**

Stony promised herself that once she settled down into her own place in Mexico, she'd create a beautiful shrine in memory of her brother, Stevie, and of her three closest friends, Cleo, Frankie, and T.T.

**16\. Black**

Frankie often wondered if she were a white woman—and not a black woman—and if she had no idea who the perpetrators were and where they lived—if those circumstances were totally different, would her boss have accused her of colluding with the bank robbers?

**17\. Lost**

Whenever Stony spent time with Keith, she felt lost in a world of class and privilege —a world with no financial worries, where dreams were always around the corner waiting to be realized—it was an unfamiliar world to her, but she believed that she could have all the things that Keith had—if she could just get out of Los Angeles and start a new life.

**18\. Cell**

Most outsiders not knowing the women's desperation would've judged them harshly as being ne'er-do-wells that should be thrown in a ten-by-eight jail cell, not realizing that for Stony, T.T., Cleo, and Frankie, their lives were already like a tiny prison cell, shrinking each day and leaving them struggling to breathe.

**19\. Villain**

Who was the true villain—the system or the quartet?

**20\. Road**

Their road to riches and freedom was the same path to death and destruction.

**21\. Weep**

Staring at the television screen with tears running down her cheeks, Ursula wept after watching the police brutally gun down the only woman she had ever loved.

**22\. Blind**

When Cleo shoved the gun's barrel in Stony's face, Stony realized her childhood friend had become blind except to one color: the mint-green of cold cash.

**23\. Pact**

They made a pact to get out of California after taking Downtown Federal—it was a pact they had to keep since their lives depended on it.

**24\. Flight**

_Fight or flight_ —Stony chose flight at their last robbery, but Cleo chose to fight.

**25\. Hard**

They nicknamed Lida "Stony" because of her hard exterior, but in reality she was the softest of the four women.

**26\. War**

Their war was a war against the system—it was a war that would take no prisoners, a war they could not win.

**27\. Deed**

Keith did many kind deeds for Stony, such as buying her the black evening gown, listening to her when she had a fight with her friends—he would do anything to show her he sincerely cared about her.

**28\. Unknown**

It was unknown to Detective Waller that her partner, Detective Strode, had let Stony go after he saw her on the bus headed to Mexico—and he planned to keep it that way.

**29\. Deep**

They knew they were in too deep when T.T. shot Luther; murder was the last thing they wanted to get involved in.

**30\. Sudden**

Detective Strode and Waller had just left Downtown Federal when they received the phone call that a bank robbery was unfolding—it happened so sudden!

**31\. Dread**

Dread crept up on Keith while he watched the video that the detectives showed him and the bank staff: he knew one of the bank robbers intimately, and a thought he didn't want to think about formed in his mind: had she been playing him the entire time?

**32\. Burn**

Twice burned by Nate Andrews and how he used her financial circumstances to satisfy his own perverted fantasies, Stony decided she'd come up with a more organized plan to get her and Stevie out of the projects.

**33\. Clock**

The clock read 3:25 p.m. when they first went in, and by the time they made it out with the cash, it was 3:26 p.m.—twelve thousand dollars in sixty seconds.

**34\. Words**

_I'll be your genie if you let me, your every wish my command_ —the words rolled off his tongue and Stony wondered if Keith just fed her sweet words to whet his sexual appetite; later on, she decided that he wasn't.

**35\. Fast**

Life in the fast lane proved to be fatal for T.T.—in the beginning, she had been worried about someone getting hurt, and of the quartet, she was the first one to get killed.

**36\. Three**

Three was a horrible number; for Stony it brought back memories that she'd like to forget: she robbed all three banks with her three closest friends, and in the end she lost them, each one had been shot and killed, leaving her as the lone survivor of their heists.

**37\. Place**

T.T. always worried what type of place her son would and up in if she wasn't allowed to raise him herself: foster care, a group home, or worse, a juvenile detention facility.

**38\. Irony**

Now that she was far from Los Angeles and free as she always wanted to be, the irony that she felt trapped by her past always made Stony feel as if her freedom was a prison in itself.

**39\. Sky**

Sitting in the car surrounded by the cops, Cleo knew she was headed for the sky and she wouldn't have it any other way, the sky was more inviting as a safe haven than this Hell called Life.

**40\. Closet**

If you were to ask Cleo **about** her life, she'd be upfront and tell you that she received a brutal beating from her father when she came out the closet as a lesbian at age fifteen, and afterwards her mother threw her out of the house; ever since then she learned to survive on her own and get by on the love she had to have for herself.

**41\. Real**

Pop culture glamorized the ghetto as though it was an exciting life to be emulated and that "living in the hood" made you tougher than the average American—but for Cleo, Stony, Frankie, and T.T., they knew the real deal: they knew firsthand about the utter hopelessness and tired struggle experienced by many who lived in the projects—and they knew they wanted out of it.

**42\. Fair**

The saying went "life isn't fair," and to T.T. that couldn't be truer: Child Protective Services deemed her unfit to raise her child, but if she were to leave him at home by himself (since she couldn't afford a babysitter), they would accuse her of neglect; either way she turned, she was damned.

**43\. Knot**

"Ever thought tying the knot?" Keith remembered asking Stony; she had shaken her head; **he** should've known that she had an independent spirit.

 **44**. **Low**

Frankie felt she had stooped low on the social ladder: from her two year career as a teller at a well-known bank, to working for Luther's cleaning services as a janitor, paid to scrub, dust, and mop the living quarters of "rich white folks"—as Luther called his clientele.

**45\. Well**

If all four women were to throw quarters intoa wishing well, it would overflowwith hundreds of thousandsof dollars, making it possible for them to accomplish their dreams.

**46\. Token**

Stony kept the black evening gown that Keith brought her as a token of their friendship and a reminder of what could have been if things had been different in both their lives.

**47\. Ugly**

If the system had a face, it would have pimples and warts, bloodshot eyes, yellowed teeth, and knotty tangled up hair.

**48\. Lure**

After their first successful bank robbery, the lure of easy money—and how to get tons of it—was hard to resist.

**49\. Drink**

Keith was impressed that Stony knew her drinks even better than he did.

**50\. Dust**

_Ashes to ashes and dust to dust_ —Frankie, Cleo, and T.T. were only precious memories in Stony's mind.


End file.
